Kyler Casler, of the 82nd Airborne Division, on his homecoming from his first deployment to Afghanistan, with (l to r) his father Mark, his sister Mara and his mother, Lori. Kyle, who lost his left foot last May when a roadside bomb exploded, will be among the local heroes honored today in Syracuse by the Central New York chapter of the American Red Cross.Family photograph

Her first instinct will be love, mingled with “true pride.” Lori Casler, her husband Mark and their daughter Mara will be in the audience this morning at the Nicholas J. Pirro Convention Center at Oncenter in Syracuse. Their son, Kyle, will be among men and women from the region honored at the annual “real heroes” breakfast, held by the Central New York chapter of the American Red Cross.

The award, Lori said, “came out of the blue.” Certainly, she is pleased that Kyle will receive such recognition. But she sees him as representing thousands of selfless men and women who have gradually slipped out of everyday American consciousness.

“When you go to Walter Reed (National Medical Center), and you walk those halls, it’s just overwhelming,” said Lori, of Union Springs in Cayuga County. “I just don’t think the general public has any idea. It’s almost all young guys, and so many of them are amputees. These guys are living and breathing what happened to them (in Iraq and Afghanistan) for the rest of their lives.”

Her wish is simple: She hopes we remember them, and that we remember how death or life-changing wounds in combat, suffered on our behalf, could be awaiting someone else’s son or daughter — if not today, then certainly tomorrow or the next day.

Kyle, 23, was in Afghanistan last May, serving with the 82nd Airborne Division, when he joined soldiers on his combat team in securing a village in southern Kandahar Province. He stepped on a hidden 25-pound roadside bomb. The charge was enormous. A full blast, almost certainly, would have claimed his life.

The bomb did not completely explode. Kyle survived.

He lost his left foot and part of his leg, about a foot beneath the knee.

“I’m just thankful every day,” Lori said. “He can still be a smart aleck. He still has his sense of humor. In a way, we feel as if he’s very fortunate.”

He also made an extreme sacrifice in the dwindling stages of a war many Americans rarely think about, if they think of it all.

Lori has lived with daily worry about her son’s wounds for almost seven months. She is an in-school suspension coordinator for Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES. Her husband works for the state prison prison, while their youngest — Mara — is a graduate of Cayuga Community College.

They learned of Kyle’s wounds last spring, when an Army captain from the 82nd called their home. The family hurried to Walter Reed, in Maryland, to meet Kyle once he arrived at the hospital. For a month, Lori slept on a cot next to her son's hospital bed. She was asked if the feeling when the lights went out at night was a flashback to times of deep memory for any parent, the times when you happen to fall asleep in a child’s bedroom to the soft, rhythmic breathing of a son or daughter.

“What it was like ...” she said, and the thought became too much. Lori paused and needed to start again.

“I’m a mother,” she said, “and it just broke my heart, and then it made me so proud as I watched how hard he worked for his independence, how he regained his mental strength.

“And then a part of it, it just made me mad, because this is the longest war in our history, and all these kids should be home by now.”

Instead, they continue to put themselves at ultimate risk, leaving Lori with a simple request:

At least remember, she said. Remember the whole person. Her son is not a soldier who lost a leg. He is the same guy who always had determination and a terrific laugh, the same guy his family greeted with joy when he returned safely from his first deployment in Afghanistan, the same guy who is already so self-sufficient that he is driving home, alone, to attend this breakfast.

“There’s so much more to him than just this kid who got blown up,” she said. “He still loves clothes shopping, and he loves to hang out with his buddies, and some of them are there with him at Walter Reed, because it was hard when they were over there and some (friends) got hurt, too. He’s adapting to his body, and we’ll have Christmas at our house, but he definitely, definitely is still Kyle.”

Ask for a story, a defining tale, and this is the one she immediately recalls. “He’ll kill me for telling you this,” she said, but she remembers when Kyle was 5 or 6, a little boy playing soccer on a summer team coached by his dad. Suddenly, Kyle went down and stayed down, absolutely motionless, and a ripple of fear shot through adults around the field. Lori and Mark ran to their son, who was staring into the grass.